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Dreadwind

Continuity:

Affiliation:

"As ominous as a storm cloud and as chilling as a winter breeze." Not everyone could make Dead End look fun by comparison, but Dreadwind manages just that. After all, Dead End just depresses himself, but Dreadwind manages to export the feeling to everyone around him. Like a bad case of Scraplets, Dreadwind's gloom is contagious and there's no mood so positive that he can't kill it within moments of entering the room. Mournful and doom-laden at the best of times, Decepticons avoid him socially and Autobots avoid him on the battlefield, leaving Dreadwind wracked with loneliness and despair.

He tends to think that he has no friends, but the truth is that he couldn't have a more perfect match than his partner Darkwing, and the two are fairly inseparable. He gets along less well with his binary-bonded NebulanPowermaster partner Hi-Test, a villainous, overachieving perfectionist who tries to bully Dreadwind into enjoying their evil acts.

Dreadwind has an exceptionally primitive nervous system, rendering him immune to most pain except, of course, existential pain.[1]

French name (Canada):Terreur

Contents

Fiction

Marvel Comics continuity

Generation One

Dreadwind and Darkwing came to Nebulos in search of Scorponok's group of Decepticons, but they had by then moved on to Earth. Furthermore, they were warned by the scientist Hi-Q that if they stayed on Nebulos, they would perish, as the Nebulans had poisoned their world's entire fuel supply to prevent another war with the Transformers from occurring. Dreadwind and Darkwing ignored this request, and eventually they lanquished on the brink of permanent shutdown.

Hi-Q's jealous protege, Hi-Test, and his accomplice Throttle offered Dreadwind and his partner salvation, by way of Powermaster technology stolen from Hi-Q. The dying Decepticon duo reluctantly agreed, and, restored, they began destroying Nebulos once again. Hi-Q and his scientists were forced to undergo the Powermaster process themselves, binary bonding with Optimus Prime and a few others. Ultimately, Dreadwind and Darkwing were forced off Nebulos. People Power!

Dreadwind, Darkwing, and their Powermaster partners eventually found themselves working for the Mecannibals at Grand Central Space Station, wrangling not only clients, but robots for the Mecannibals to devour. They discovered that two of their clients, Landmine and Cloudburst, were actually robots disguised as humans, and turned them in to their hungry bosses. Guess Who the Mecannibals are Having for Dinner? The Autobots-in-disguise made a savory deal with the Mecannibals, and so Dreadwing and Darkwing followed them to Femax. In the process, however, they were not only beaten up by Sky Lynx, but Hi-Test and Throttle's ship was discovered to be Dreadwind and Darkwing, robots themselves. Cloudburst and Landmine snitched, and the Mecannibals angrily chased the pair and their Powermaster Partners across the cosmos. Recipe for Disaster!

Seriously, they're inseparable.

After losing the Mecannibals, Dreadwind and Darkwing were recruited in secret by Megatron to bring him the corpse of the Underbase-destroyed Starscream. They found him in southern Peru, where his zombie body stalked the Earth, somehow animated past death by the remainder of the Underbase's energies. They successfully retrieved the corpse, despite a tangle with the Triggerbots and archaeologist Susan Hoffman. Race with the Devil The corpse was delivered to Megatron on Cybertron, who had recently abducted the Autobot medical officer Ratchet to exhort him into rebuilding Starscream using Pretender technology. Resurrection Gambit! But Ratchet doublecrossed Megatron, unleashing his own Pretender army, and the battle, involving Dreadwind, Darkwing, the Pretender Classics, and the MicromasterSports Car Patrol, spread outside Megatron's headquarters, moments before the headquarters detonated with Ratchet and Megatron still inside. Skin Deep

Feeling like losers, Dreadwind and Darkwing chose to drink away their sorrows at Maccadam's Old Oil House. The Mecannibals followed them to the pub, eating their way past Rocky, the bouncer. The Mecannibals immediately began tearing up the joint, with the pair of inebriated Decepticons blissfully unaware of the chaos around them. Luckily, Quickswitch was present and leapt into action. After a brief skirmish, Quickswitch used his tunneling mode to bury the Mecannibals alive deep underground.Out to Lunch!

The two were summoned by Primus to face Unicron, though Dreadwing spent the speech telling funny anecdotes to Darkwing, annoying everyone around them. The Void! When the Chaos Bringer attacked, Dreadwing realised that attacking would likely mean they'd die a horrible death but didn't seem too bothered about that. On the Edge of Extinction! Though they survived, the pair was even more mopey than usual, and on their way to a joint Autobot/Decepticon conference to discuss the imminent demise of their homeworld, Dreadwind was hit on the noggin by a large piece of falling debris. Exodus! Dreadwind was shaken, but survived to escape Cybertron on a starship with several other Decepticons led by Bludgeon, stranding the Autobots behind to die. Finally, when the Autobots managed to follow the Decepticons to Klo, the Decepticons ambushed them upon their arrival. Dreadwind and Darkwing, combined as Dreadwing, picked off some of the last remaining Autobots, including Getaway. However, their victory was halted by the divine intervention of the Last Autobot, and the wounded remnants of the Decepticon army fled Klo to parts unknown. End of the Road!

"Dread Tidings" Marvel UK letters page

He hates your letters.

Dreadwind and Hi-Test answered the Transformers fanmail for, like, forever! When his time came, he refused to leave, and holed himself up in the Marvel offices. He was finally evicted by Blaster who complained that Dreadwind had decorated the office in all purple and orange with a solitary picture of a dog with sad eyes.

Another Time and Place

Note:"Another Time and Place," the last original Marvel Generation One material printed, was soon invalidated by the events of the Generation 2 comics... which Dreadwind did not actually appear in at all.

Dreadwind was among Bludgeon's decimated Decepticon forces when they followed Grimlock and his Dinobots to Hydrus Four, hoping to steal the power of Nucleon for themselves. Dreadwind helped ambush the rogue Dinobots, using a device called a Holocaust Trigger to unleash discordant light and sound, overwhelming their equilibrium. When Grimlock was freed by a rescue team hours later, however, Dreadwind walked in at just the wrong time and was shot by Grimlock using Crankcase's concussion blaster. He and the remnants of the Decepticon army under Bludgeon were defeated. Another Time and Place

Classics

After the battle on Klo, Dreadwind stayed under the command of Bludgeon, who in turn assigned Dreadwind to Bug Bite's subcommand. At some point, Hi-Test was disarmed (no, really) by Grimlock, a turn of events that Dreadwind suspects Hi-Test was fine with, so long as his death meant they didn't have to continue being partners. Dreadwind, like Weirdwolf, was subsequently rebuilt by Bug Bite in order to accomodate the loss of their Nebulans. Games of Deception

After the disastrous battle with Megatron, Dreadwind escaped with the critically-damaged Weirdwolf and the apparently-dead Bug Bite, bringing them both back to their ship. Dreadwind stuffed Weirdwolf into a CR chamber, then sat down and moped. When a group of extradimensional visitors arrived looking for Bug Bite, Dreadwind glumly assumed they were some of Megatron's crew out to kill him. When that turned out not to be the case, and the "dead" Bug Bite turned out to be very much alive, he grumped a lot while being largely ignored. Withered Hope

IDW comics continuity

Someone remembered Nebulos doesn't have F-16s.

Dreadwind was a part of Darkwing's Infiltration unit on Nebulos when the planet was ravaged by a resurrected, supernaturally-powerful Thunderwing. Stormbringer issue 2 Darkwing ordered Dreadwind and the other Decepticons under his command to try to stop Thunderwing before he blew up the planet, which would ruin their long-reaching plans to harvest its natural resources, but all but Dreadwind, Darkwing, and Thrust were annihilated. They fled the planet, fearful of Megatron's reaction to their failure. Stormbringer issue 3

Toys

Generation One

It's like if a Seeker were a good toy.

Dreadwind (Powermaster, 1988)

Accessories: "Hi-Test" Powermaster engine, left & right "Lasers"

Dreadwind transforms into a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon jet. In order to transform back into robot mode, a Powermaster engine --like his pack-in partner Hi-Test-- must be plugged into his back, unlocking the wings and a few other bits. Once he has an engine attached, his jet mode can also combine with Darkwing's to form the Dreadwing super-jet. He also comes with two non-firing handguns that can be held separately, or combined into a large double-barreled weapon.

Like Jetfire, Dreadwind comes with a number of removable accessories, including a booster pack, two arm-mounted missile launchers, two missiles, and a helmet. The toy's add-on booster pack has flip-out reveal cannons. As with most Classics toys, he features a heat-sensitive rubsign.

Notes

Hello, hello, hello!

Dreadwind and Darkwing show up in several commercials.

They appeared first, of course, in commercials for the Powermasters. This footage was chopped up and used in several different-but-similar Powermasters commercials, and focused on the new Optimus Prime, the non-Prime Autobot and Decepticon Powermasters, or their appearance in Marvel Comics.

They appeared again in the animated introduction to the first Pretenders commercial. The narration claims that a series of defeats forces the Autobots to develop Pretender technology, and as the Pretenders rise from their operating tables, Dreadwind and Darkwing break in and approach them. (The Pretenders are considerably smaller than Dreadwind and Darkwing, lending evidence to the idea that the commercials' Pretenders are human-sized.)

Later, they're the victims of the new Micromasters. Optimus Prime unleashes an army of Micromasters upon a Decepticon base, they slip past the guard, and once inside they crawl up both Dreadwind and Darkwing and overwhelm them.

Footage from the first commercial, depicting Dreadwind and Darkwing in vehicle mode chasing Getaway and Joyride in vehicle mode, was used at the beginning of the commercial for the Triggerbots and Triggercons. This animation seemed to be meant to represent these other toys. Don't pay too close attention, kids!

According to the letters page in the Marvel UK issue #254, White Fire, Dreadwind stands 42 feet tall. In the letter page of issue #195, he states that he is 4,060,342 years old in 1988. The letter pages for issue #248 and #299 would confirm his approximate age.